Mortenson taps local veteran for development push

Longtime developer J. Randall “Randy” Tieman joined Mortenson Construction Co., a Minneapolis-based building behemoth that wants to raise its profile as a Chicago developer.

Mr. Tieman recently began work as the construction firm's first director of development in Chicago. Since 2008 he had been at Deerfield-based Janko Group LLC, a much smaller firm focused more on repositioning distressed properties.

Mr. Tieman, 58, will create a Chicago development business, as the firm has done in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Denver and soon will do in Seattle, said Greg Werner, head of the firm's local office in Elk Grove Village.

Mortenson has annual revenue of $2.4 billion, including $300 million in Chicago, where it has about 170 employees, Mr. Werner said. But he estimates less than 10 percent of the company's revenue comes from development.

“The goal is to increase that quite a bit,” Mr. Werner said. “It's a big part of our growth strategy as a company, and particularly in Chicago.”

Mortenson's Chicago-area construction projects include the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, a four-building, 800-bed residence-hall project at the University of Chicago designed by Jeanne Gang and modernizations of the Chicago Bears' Halas Hall practice facility in Lake Forest and Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.

In its home city, Mortenson is building the new stadium for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings.

Now, Mr. Tieman's task is to raise Mortenson's development profile to a similar level in the Chicago area as the company enjoys in the construction business. He'll shift his focus from distressed plays at Janko to larger ground-up developments.

“I would like Mortenson Development to become known as one of top developers in all of Chicagoland,” he said. “That will come with doing successful projects and adding people, which will give us the opportunity to do more and more.”

In addition to serving the development needs of existing construction clients, Mr. Tieman will lead developments backed by Mortenson and joint venture partners in a range of properties likely to include medical offices, data centers, office buildings, hotels and apartments, he said.

Mr. Tieman remains a partner in a few of Janko's real estate deals, said Gary Janko, senior managing director.

“Randy was a great team member,” Mr. Janko said. “He lifted us in the public eye and introduced us to a couple of major pension funds that we did transactions with. We parted very amicably. He had an opportunity to go to a larger company with more resources and a larger platform.”

Mr. Tieman grew up in Mendota, near LaSalle-Peru in north central Illinois, and earned a finance degree from the University of Illinois in 1978. He went into commercial real estate in 1986.

His career included a decade at Opus North Corp. in Rosemont, where he was involved in the five-building Highland Landmark office campus in Downers Grove.

At Janko, Mr. Tieman helped turn around distressed properties including a 426-room Holiday Inn Select hotel in Naperville that was gutted and rebranded as a Marriott, and a 189,686-square-foot office building in Vernon Hills that is under contract to be sold a little over than two years after it was vacant, he said.